Apartment Dwellers Prepare for Service Workers' Strike

By IVER PETERSON

Published: April 20, 1991

Negotiators began round-the-clock talks for a new contract yesterday as apartment owners completed preparations to do their own building chores while a strike deadline of 12:01 A.M. Sunday drew near for 25,000 doormen, porters, elevator operators and other service workers.

Residents in co-op and condominium buildings will have to watch their own lobbies, take out their buildings' garbage and help one another with minor repairs. Owners of rental buildings have to make other arrangements for their tenants.

Britten Kent, president of the board of her co-op building at 155 East 73d Street near Lexington Avenue, said residents had stocked up on garbage bags and topped the oil tank because fuel delivery drivers may not cross picket lines if a strike comes.

"Everybody pitches in and supports each other," she said. "We have sent out a general alert to tenants to be aware that they must be security-conscious and that they may be slightly inconvenienced." The Issue Is Money

James F. Berg, who directs the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations, the owners' bargaining group, said the unresolved issues were economic.

"They have a long list of demands, but I think the central core is economic: more pay, costs of benefits," he said, declining to go into detail. His association has 2,800 co-op, condo and rental buildings in all the boroughs except the Bronx, and in Nassau and Suffolk Counties.

Gus Bevona, head of Local 32B-32J of the Building Service Employees International Union, did not respond to repeated requests made since last week for comments on the talks. The law firm of Manning Raab Dealy & Sturm, which represents the local, also did not return calls.

Doormen, elevator operators, porters and other service employees receive $462.73 a week under the current three-year contract, which took effect in 1988 and ends on Sunday, according to the Realty Advisory Board. Handymen make $503 a week and superintendents, who belong to the same union but whose contract does not expire until June 20, receive from $500 to $650 a week, plus housing and utilities if they live in their buildings. The Advisory Board contract generally sets the pattern for nonmember buildings as well.

Wages have been increasing by about 5 percent a year, Mr. Berg said, reflecting the relatively prosperous state of the city's housing market when the contract was signed three years ago. Since then, the market has turned downward, and owners also face the prospect of sharply higher taxes and other expenses.

The last two strikes by the service employees, for a week in 1979 and for 12 days in 1976, came at times when the real-estate market was similarly weakened. There was no consensus among board members and building managers as to the likelihood of a strike.

But Mr. Berg conceded that building owners' economic conditions were a factor at the bargaining table. The Benefit of a Strike

"The city has already proposed to increase taxes by a large amount, and there are other problems with financing and problems with meeting current maintenance payments by co-operators," he said. "In rental buildings there are even difficulties in renting vacancies, something we have hardly ever seen in New York City before."

Paul Brensilver, head of Streamline Management, said the owners of some buildings his company manages think a strike will save them money.

"They're looking at this in a positive way, as a way to close their maintenance gap," Mr. Brensilver said. "They are actually looking forward to an eight-week strike because it would solve their budget problem."

Co-op owners will generally have to carry their own garbage to the curb if there is a strike, share duties as lobby-watchers and go down to receive deliveries themselves, said Mary Ann Rothman, director of the Council of New York Cooperatives, an apartment owners' group.

The council has also advised buildings to line up security services to watch the lobby during hours that the apartment owners will not, generally the night shift.

Gordon Hough, president of his co-op at 255 West End Avenue near West 72d Street, was philosophical about the prospect of co-op owners having to dirty their hands.

"It all depends on how you view it," he said. "If you think it's something that needs to be done, you can handle it. But if you think taking out your garbage is an intolerable burden, it will be harder for you."